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This really sounds very much like how Asperger's presents in a gifted child. I would press for an evaluation from someone familiar with kids who are both gifted and Asperger's.

Here is a link to a good basic article on the intersection of Asperger's and giftedness.

Wow Aculady, That sounds a lot like my DS. Especially the sense of humor part. Its very hard watching him try to understand humor and always seems to laugh at the oddest things. He actually has a dual dx of ADHD/ODD but the description of the arguing with parents seems more in line then some of the descriptions of ODD kids. The lack of empathy also seemed very familiar. Once you explain it to him he can see it (well sorta) but he never sees it on his own.

I saw your post yesterday, then realized aculady and DeeDee had beaten me to the mark.

+1 everything they are saying. Your son is in the same place mine was in last year. Unstructured time at recess with no adult backup to help him negotiate conflicts was just too much for him. Things are slightly better this year, with closely supervised lunch in a small group setting with a facilitator, which he has been able to carry on to the playground for the following recess.

Whatever his label your son clearly needs some social skills training, and an adult to facilitate recess activities. Some schools in our areas have the SLP work on pragmatic language during recess with an "informal", open to all activity (legos, puzzles, games) to attract and mix special needs and NT kids. Should be in his IEP...

We have another IEP sched for this month. This one will include the teachers in his new full day gifted program he starts next year. Based on everyone's posts I emailed the school psychologist about the possibility of Aspergers. I'd brought it up before but never really was able to get a clear idea of why/why not that dx. He is in a social skills class as part of the special school district in our area. I think its very helpful but I'm going to keep researching classroom & recess strategies for him.

Thank you all so much for your responses. Finding this forum for 2E children has been such a relief just to know I'm not alone.

Irishmaggie, if you can, I'd recommend pursuing an outside evaluation in parallel with the eval through the school. Some school psychologists are not well enough trained about autism to be able to recognize it in a gifted child, who may have very subtle language/communication impairments and present in unusual ways. A specialist is likely to give you much better information.

At the same time, you want the school to evaluate so that you can get the services.

It's a lot of work to do both, but worth gathering enough information that you have a really good picture of skills and challenges.

DeeDee

Just in case you have not heard about SENG. Below is a link for an upcoming webinar about ASD and gifted.


SENGinar

oops

http://www.sengifted.org/programs/senginars/upcoming-senginar

Well I got an email back from the school psychologist and she had already planned to evaluate his ability to interact socially in the next 2 weeks. She said that they were going to do a full autism spectrum test to see where he falls.

Fingers crossed this gives us some better direction on how to help him at school!

Excellent news. Hopefully the psychologist at the school is familiar with gifted kids on the spectrum.

Good! I hope you get what you need.

DeeDee